confiscated. They were guilty of loyalty to the crown and country for
which their ancestor had fought, and the third generation was saved from
the poorhouse "by the bounty of individuals on whom they had no claims
for favour." In other words, Pepperell's memory was dishonoured, because
in serving New England he had worn the king's uniform. In the eyes
of the newly emancipated, treachery was retrospective. Pepperell's
biographer explains his sin and its punishment with a perfect clarity.
"The eventful life of Sir W. Pepperell," he writes, "closed a few years
before the outbreak of the Revolution. Patriotism in his day implied
loyalty and fidelity to the King of England; but how changed the meaning
of that word in New England after the Declaration of Independence! Words
and deeds before deemed patriotic were now traitorous, and so deeply was
their moral turpitude impressed on the public mind as to have tainted
popular opinions concerning the heroic deeds of our ancestors, performed
in the King's service in the French Wars.... The War of the Revolution
absorbed and neutralised all the heroic fame of the illustrious men
that preceded, and the achievements of Pepperell, of Johnson, and of
Bradstreet are now almost forgotten." These words were written in 1855,
and they have not yet lost their truth.

For us this forgetfulness is not easily intelligible. It is our habit to
attach ourselves closely to the past. If there have been conflicts, they
have left no rancour, no bitterness. The winner has been modest, the
loser magnanimous. The centuries of civil strife which devastated
England imposed no lasting hostility. Nobody cares to-day whether his
ancestor was Cavalier or Roundhead. The keenest Royalist is willing to
acknowledge the noble prowess and the political genius of Cromwell. The
hardiest Puritan pays an eager tribute to the exalted courage of Charles
I. But the Americans have taken another view. They would, if they could,
discard the bonds which unite them with England. For the mere glamour of
independence they would sacrifice the glory of the past. They would even
assume an hostility to their ancestors because these ancestors were of
English blood. They seem to believe that if they forget their origin
persistently enough it will be transformed. The top of their
ambition would be reached if they could suppose that they were
autochthonous,--that they sprang into being fully armed upon American
soil. It irks them to think